Title: Destruction Calls My Name

Characters: Mark/Lexie

Rating: T

Spoilers: Up through 5.16 “An Honest Mistake”

Disclaimer: I don't own Grey’s. Oh, well.

A/N: This is a one-shot companion piece to Wide Open Spaces. This time it’s Lexie’s turn.

* * *

You want to believe you are not the cause; that you are not the cause of so much destruction.

He says it was worth it, but you wonder if he means it.

As he says the words, his eyes meet yours with absolute conviction and not a hint of doubt.

This does not comfort you as it should.

* * *

Considering all that has been broken, it is strange that only his face shows the damage.

When you return with him to his hotel room that night, his shoulders are slumped, as if he carries the weight of the world upon them.

You know that he does.

“Thirty-four years,” He says bitterly.

“Sorry?” You reply.

“We have been friends for thirty-four years.”

You dimly wonder if he has done the math and realized that this is ten years longer than you have been in existence.

You don’t tell him in case he hasn’t.

* * *

Despite what he said, you expect resentment.

You expect him to pull away; to get distant.

He does none of these things.

* * *

Your relationship has been altered fundamentally.

It shouldn’t surprise you but it does.

All those nights before, when you would turn to each other, spent and sated, and spoke with whispers that would make it only to each other’s ears, are nothing compared to now.

You have been granted a rare window into Mark Sloan’s mind. Anything he hesitated telling you before seems to spill out of him, as if he is relieved to confess his thoughts to the only person waiting to hear them.

You wonder if destroying one relationship, so that another might live, creates a false sense of closeness.

Then you push the thought away and sink onto his waiting body.

* * *

For a week after the fight, no one at the hospital seems to know what it was about.

You like it that way.

But then Alex Karev, who wasn’t satisfied with the previous destruction he created in your life, overhears Meredith and Derek talking one night.

He tells Izzie.

Izzie tells George.

George tells the world.

It suddenly occurs to you just exactly what revealing your relationship with Mark means.

It means glares and innuendos, whispers and judgments, concerns and jealousy.

The shocking part is they all come from one source.

George.

* * *

As for the rest of the hospital, they meet you with an amazing amount of goodwill and happiness.

The nurses smile and giggle when they see you and Mark.

Mark doesn’t notice, which you are grateful for.

Your fellow interns are convinced this means great things for their own respective careers.

You swallow the laugh bubbling in your throat.

The Chief seems annoyed but indulgent, and sends Patricia, who beams at you, to follow you around until you have filled out a form.

As if the status of your relationship with Mark could be confined to a box on a piece of paper.

* * *

You pack all of your belongings into two brown suitcases and carry them quietly down the stairs.

You are tired of moving.

The protocol for moving out of your half-sister’s house is not one you are familiar with, but you know you should probably tell her.

But you haven’t spoken to her in a month.

Living in her house has been worse than dating Anne Frank.

The two suitcases are heavy as you lift them, but you wonder if it is sad that all your worldly possessions fit into them with ease.

“You don’t have to do this,” A familiar voice says.

You turn and see the man who broke Mark’s face into tiny pieces.

“You shouldn’t do this,” He says.

You are twenty-four; a surgical intern with a dead mother and a mostly-dead father, and yet…he is the one who looks lost.

“Call your mother, Derek,” You say, closing the door behind you.

* * *

You never hated him until this moment.

As you stand in the halls of the hospital, a small ball of spit forms at the left corner of his mouth as he yells at you.

“Are you out of your mind? He is Mark Sloan! He demolishes everything that he touches! What the hell are you thinking, Lexie?”

You can’t believe that you ever sought to turn liking into love.

“You don’t know him, George.”

Your voice speaks of things he cannot comprehend.

He does not listen.

But then, he never did.

“He will destroy you,” George states, his eyes fixing intently on your own.

Your skin crawls as you look at him, and you wonder when he became so small.

“Perhaps destruction calls my name.”

* * *

He is there for you on a day you wish to forget.

You want it to pass; you don’t want to remember. You resent that he pushes you to think of something that brings so much sorrow.

He makes you remember and you hate him for a brief moment.

But then it all spills out and you are sobbing against his chest.

“I miss her, Mark,” You cry.

You wonder if he can love you when you look like that.

When you hate to be touched.

When you are impossible to be around.

But then, one month earlier, you had done the same for him as he cried for a tiny, lost life.

It’s all relative, you suppose.

* * *

Derek comes with him to your apartment one day, and you breathe a sigh of relief.

You smile at Mark as he meets your eyes.

There are no recriminations within his own, only happy contentment.

Later, nothing changes in his behavior and you dimly realize, for the first time, that he never blamed you for the loss of his best friend.

You start to forgive yourself then.

* * *

You sit with Izzie Stevens as she dies of cancer.

That beautiful face, which you had once held such deep and abiding jealously for, is now ravaged by a disease which cannot be found or exhausted.

“Tell me about McSteamy,” She says.

You want to cry.

“I bet he is great in bed.”

Now you want to yell.

They can’t see; none of them even try. You suppose that Dr. Torres does, at some level, but to everyone else, Mark Sloan is nothing more than an idea.

To you, he is so much more.

“He’s wonderful,” You say. “He takes care of me.”

Her lungs fill with fluid as she coughs, sounding as if all the world has faded and death has called her name.

“Tell me more,” She croaks. “Do you love him?”

You nod. “More than I can even describe.”

You want to tell her what you mean, but words have no meaning for love such as this.

She smiles. “I remember that too.”

You wonder what she means.

“Soon,” Izzie says.

She dies on a Thursday.

* * *

You marry Mark beneath the willow trees.

The same ones you learned to climb when you had a mother, father, sister by your side.

None of them come to the wedding.

* * *

You want to believe you are not the cause; that you are not the cause of so much destruction.

Out of three broken relationships, only two are mended. And they stand beside you now, a sister and a brother to you both.

Other faces are absent.

You question if it had to be this way.

If life demanded a sacrifice so that you might belong to him.

As you stand there a blessing is read and you place your hands in his.

Nothing is being destroyed.

Only created.

He recites his vows and you wonder if the love you share will continue to burn into that oh so distant night.

And then he kisses you and you know it will.

* * *

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